Hope is a Cruel Companion
by Demented Inu
Summary: Alfred finds comfort in the midst of a Cold War craze, but it's not as nice as it may seem. Mexico/America.


**1971, Washington D.C.**

The coffee in this joint tasted like shit. Alfred's mind stuck on that note whenever he found himself going back for another styrofoam cup full of the bitter but caffeinated liquid. It would have to do; he was only after the caffeine anyway, and if the Oval Office needed one thing to function, it was caffeine. He supposed the joe here definitely had plenty of that. Enough to keep him wired and antsy for the rest of the night, sure, but at least it was enough to keep from dozing off during important meetings with his President.

He poured into it a sufficient amount of cream and the little white packets of sugar, but it was still too bitter against his tongue. He tried hard not to mind it. There was honestly no fucking point in bitching over his coffee, not with this shit with the Soviet Union hitting the fan again. Stressful, yes - but manageable, he hoped.

Suddenly the private phone in the room gave its shrill cry into the silence, making him startle enough to splash the scathingly hot coffee all over his front.

"Ah - _fuck_," he hissed, plucking the wet cloth away from his chest and using his free hand to snatch at the phone. "Alfred Jones." His tone was a bit clipped, but he didn't really feel too bad about, not with hot coffee all over himself, and certainly not after the woman on the other end spoke in that shrill Aunt Gertrude voice of hers.

"_Mr. Jones, you have a Miss Rodriguez on the line for you. She says you'd know-_"

"Yeah, okay, just put her through." Alfred mouthed another expletive against the mouthpiece, grabbing up a fistful of brown paper napkins and wiping at the mess hastily. This shirt would have a huge stain now, and he was starting to get a headache on top of everything else.

The line went silent for a moment before a new voice came through, this time less shrill, but still grating in its overdramatic enthusiasm.

"Señor America!" Maria practically sang into the line, causing Alfred to wince and pull the phone back. He'd never enjoyed dealing with his southern neighbors, but especially not the northern half of Mexico. A sweet girl, yes, but also fairly annoying and always irritatingly bubbly. He was ready to just protest to whatever it was she wanted, but she ran right over him. "_I know you hate when I call you at work,_ mi amor, _but I haven't spoken to you in so long_..."

"I'm really busy, Mexico," he insisted, and received a whine in return. Jesus Christ, was she just determined to make him want to kill things? "I'm serious. You may be dandy just kickin' back on vacation, but I'm going through some serious-"

"_You think I'm not going through serious shit too?_"

Damn it. Alfred didn't want to deal with this right now, but could practically hear her glaring over the phone.

"Maria, I'm not saying-"

"_Not directly_," she went on. "_You think you're such a great country, don't you?_ Muy bien, y muy guapo, y muy rico, y perfecto. Pero _you also think you go through such a hard time! Look at Mexico, look at our Depression, and at our corrupt government, look at our_-"

Alfred sighed, holding the phone away from himself, but she went on loudly enough that he could still hear her chatter, unintelligible over the line. He knew that Mexico had her share of problems too, they all did, but it couldn't compare to the Soviet Union breathing down his neck.

She was rambling in Spanish by the time he returned his attention to the phone. "Mexico," he cut in, effectively silencing her. "I'm sorry. Okay?"

There was silence for a long moment, then a frustrated sigh. He could hear her breathing, just slightly labored from shouting. "Si, _okay_," she finally relented.

"There. Now." Alfred proceeded to begin pouring himself another cup of coffee, with caution this time in case she decided to explode again. "What did you need?"

Because Maria never called him up just to chat. She always had an ulterior motive; despite the seemingly sunny and bubbly nature, Mexico was all business and he knew it. Her attitude was just a front. She was Spain's daughter, after all.

"_Mm_," she hummed in thought, so distinctively that Alfred could picture her dark eyebrows knitted, her little mouth forming a childish pout. Honestly, this girl could give Hollywood lessons. "_I know you've been having trouble with_ Señor Rusia. _I have a new bottle of tequila,_ y... _I could come over and make you something to eat. You like my_ tostatos y horchata, si?"

Sweet, nearly deceptively so. He couldn't read the motive behind it. Who knew? Maybe this time she just wanted to take a break from her shit too.

"Alright," Alfred agreed. What harm was there in having dinner with a neighbor?

He could practically hear her bright smile as he hung up the phone.

* * *

The house seemed ready enough for guests by the time Alfred was expecting Mexico to arrive. The floor was picked up, papers neatly stacked on the coffee table; much cleaner than he would've been a decade ago. His eyes closed as he remembered the dimmed lights, the photographs scattered over the carpet, sitting close to a bolted door with a gun cradled to his chest.

No, not anymore. He still liked his door lock, yes, but he kept his gun in his coat pocket now, and never let others see that side of him anymore. Too many had seen it already - Arthur, Prussia, Ivan himself - his eyes flicked shamefully to the bullet hole in the wall by his door. No, never again.

The knock at his door was too timid to startle him, so he just adjusted his coat and went to answer it. But it wasn't Maria who stood on his doorstep, and he blinked in confusion for a long moment.

"...where's your sister?"

Instead of Maria, it was her less successful younger brother that stood before him. Pablo Rodriguez was about half a head taller than Maria was, meaning that he was still a full nine inches shorter than Alfred himself. Though honestly, he looked much more than Spain than Maria did. The curly brown hair and summer green eyes and lightly brown skin was almost a mirror image.

But Pablo was definitely different - didn't smile too often, his accent less pronounced, altogether less... extravagant. Alfred liked that about South Mexico. He was simple, easy to understand.

"She's busy," Pablo said, shouldering his way into the house. A tequila bottle was gripped in his hand and glinted in the afternoon light. "She felt bad about not being able to make it, so I came instead. You... don't mind, do you?"

He did and he didn't. He wouldn't tell Pablo that much, though. "No," he muttered as he closed the door, locked it. "Of course not."

Pablo looked almost too small in his house. The air was laden with awkward tension that was thick enough to cut with a knife; Alfred's fingers tapped against his leg restlessly in search of something to say. He remembered that Maria had promised to make him dinner, and a disappointed feeling came over him. "Can you cook?" he asked.

Pablo shook his head. "No, but I can garden." As if that made up for it. Alfred knew that already - the whole beautiful garden out back was thanks to him.

"Well, what else are you good at?" Just keep the ball rolling. Conversation was key in keeping people pinned. But the other just looked stunned a bit at the question like a deer in the headlights.

"Um-" Speechless, which Alfred had seen on Pablo before, but rarely. It was awkward to watch his guest verbally flail to think of his own skills. "Let's - Let's open the tequila."

They did, though Pablo insisted on just drinking straight from the bottle instead of from glasses. Tequila was a new drink to Alfred, though he'd had strong alcohol before, namely the vodka that Ivan had shared with him shortly after winning his independence from England. He remembered choking half to death on the bitter burn and how Ivan had restricted him from there on out to the Hungarian dessert wines - the memory gave his heart a violent twist. There would be no more laughter between them, no more wine; not after this terrible bloodless fight, decades spent just staring one another down in the hopes the other one would blink.

But Pablo was different. They'd had their tiff over Texas, and then their full-scale war, but even then, the fight had mostly been with Maria. So the siblings hadn't wanted to be annexed as states - their loss. But whatever tensions they'd had in the 1800s were long over and done with. Pablo was thin and wiry and tired-looking and quiet as he swigged the first mouthful from the bottle; but he was still here in Alfred's hour of paranoia, trusting him, sharing drinks with him just as Ivan used to.

A new best friend. It was definitely in order, and Pablo seemed the only one he'd ever be able to trust after this. If he lived long enough to call Pablo a best friend; if Ivan didn't bomb him before then.

The bottle was thrust into his hands and he looked down to where Pablo's saliva was shiny on the lip of the mouth. Secondhand kissing, his childish brain told him, but Pablo was looking at him with the green eyes of innocence. Alfred drank, and closed his eyes to the sour tequila mingling with the taste of Pablo's spit, tortilla-bland yet jalapeno spicy on his tongue.

"It's good," Alfred said, though wasn't sure if he meant the drink or the more foreign flavor now in his mouth. The burn in the back of his throat was a good burn, and he took another swig.

Pablo's smile was all teeth, shining white in the dim light of the living room; Alfred couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Pablo smile, and it almost saddened him. "Only the best," he gloated. "I don't carry that watery shit, _jefe_. Give me more credit than that."

Joking. Good, they were joking together. Relaxing together. Drinking together. Just like friends.

"_Jefe_... that means boss, right?" Alfred clarified, and upon getting the nod of confirmation, he just waved a hand. "Just call me Alfred. It's fine."

Pablo's eyes dropped to the side, though he took the bottle back like a safety blanket. "You're my employer, _Señor America_. It wouldn't be appropriate."

He watched as Pablo took a few heavy swallows from the drink as his own head began to get swimmy, the beginnings of queasy drunkenness sitting in his belly. Apparently the shit in Maria's liquor cabinet was a lot stronger than the watered-down Bud passed between him and the high school students he tended to hang out with nowadays, poured foamy and thin into empty Coca-Cola bottles behind abandoned buildings.

"Well... think of it like this." Alfred leaned forward on the sofa. "As long as this visit lasts, pretend that I'm not your employer. And I'll pretend that you're not working for me. I'll be just Alfred... and you'll be just Pablo. _Comprende_?"

For some reason, Pablo's expression had changed. No longer smiling and awkward, but dazed like someone had hit him over the head with something heavy.

"Alright..." he murmured, then gave that little lopsided smile. "Alfred, then. F-for now."

Ivan has a crooked smile too. Just not quite as bright.

He took the drink back with a smile of his own, blaming the butterflies he felt on the booze. Drunk off two shots of tequila - but Pablo didn't seem to mind. The drink tickled his throat as it went down and he laughed as he choked, wishing he had a joint to go with it so he could scorch his lungs parchment-thin and feel this Cold War weight lift from his shoulders.

"Careful." Pablo clapped his back, strangely hard for such a little guy. "Don't try to guzzle it. You don't drink too often, do you?"

Alfred shook his head out of honesty. "Too young," he said through hoarse giggles. "I'm underage."

Pablo laughed, though it was a bitter noise, not like Alfred's at all. Not like Ivan's either. "Never stopped me. You shouldn't let your government limit your personal choices like that. I mean... your legal drinking age here is, what, eighteen?"

"I wish. Twenty-one." Which sucked, a lot, since Alfred was still freshly eighteen.

"Whatever. My point is: you're way older than twenty-one, _si_? Two hundred years. You have every right to buy a drink if you wanted to. I mean, who makes these laws? Fat old white men who've never fired a gun at anyone else and are making decisions about how American teenagers live their lives. You've seen more than they could ever hope to see."

Alfred scoffed. "Yeah, I'll just tell the bartenders that when they card me."

"Then print a fake ID card. You're brilliant," Pablo told him. "You'll think of something."

Pablo took the bottle back, hesitated with his lips resting just against the mouth like the ghost of a kiss. Alfred had been complimented before, but this seemed much more sincere compared to other times. They were both quietly sipping away at the booze in Alfred's living room and ignoring whatever silence hung there between them.

Alfred whispered, awkwardly, "You're pretty smart too, you know," as he noticed the drink was already halfway gone. He was dizzy with it, but South Mexico just sat there with only the slightest flush to his face, obviously a much more experienced drinker. Honestly, Alfred suspected him of being alcoholic. "All your trouble with Spain, and then France getting on your case like he did-"

"You don't have to be smart to fend off those two," Pablo cut in. "Just need to have a lot of patience... and a lot of endurance. Stamina."

"Stamina, huh?" He felt a smirk come over him, couldn't help the suggestive look as he teased him. "And you have a lot of that, I imagine?"

Instead of the shy blush he was expecting, Pablo returned the smirk with a wicked grin of his own. "If you don't believe me, as Venezuela. Or Brazil. Or Argentina, or Paraguay..." With a shrug, he took another mouthful of booze. "Man, you white guys always assume that I never go outside or something. South America's not as weird about sex as you guys."

"You've-" Alfred choked again on his own swallow, put his sleeve up to his mouth, "-_all_ of South America?"

Pablo laughed almost as loudly as Alfred had earlier. "N-no, _jefe,_ they- _Dios mio_, stop choking, you're making me nervous!" He slapped Alfred's back again but couldn't stop laughing. "What does it matter to you anyway? I bet it's nothing compared to your bedpost. America the Beautiful and all that."

Alfred felt his face flush with heat as he mentally counted the notches on his own bedpost. His first had been with Ivan after the meeting in Tehran in 1945, while Stalin and FDR had a serious talk over dinner and Ivan's hands fumbled open Alfred's clothes in a back room. It had been rough, desperate, gasping breaths and grasping hands and nothing Alfred had wanted for his first.

Then there'd been Arthur in a marijuana-smoke room while the lulling sounds of John Lennon's voice wafted in the air - dizzy and breathless, but also painful to know how little he really meant to his former empire.

"Um, yeah," was all Alfred could think to say when he realized that was all. Pablo's grin faded and his eyes blinked confusedly at him.

"Well... I mean, you're America, there must be at least five-" Went quiet when Alfred shook his head in shyness. "But... Alfred, that doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't...?"

"Ask England," Alfred snapped, bitterly embarrassed. "He could probably tell you." He dared not read Pablo's expression further. Such a stupid topic to bring up. Quietly, he murmured his drunken insecurity, the alcohol in his system inhibiting his ability to catch himself. "Who would ever want to date me?"

There was a small silence and Pablo's eyebrows knitted. "Don't say that." His voice was soft, smooth and dark like chocolate. "Don't say that about yourself. Who wouldn't want to date you? I mean, you've got a lot of really good qualities. You - you're brilliant, you know, but I think I said that already... and you're strong - not just physically, but emotionally too, and... and you're really..."

Alfred was red in the face all the way to the roots of his hair as he waited to hear it. You could compliment the United States so much before the flaws came. Power-hungry. Bland. Pasty, or else with that smattering of annoying freckles he tended to pick up in the summertime. Baby-eyed despite how ruggedly handsome he tried to appear. Fat.

"You're really good looking," Pablo continued quietly, glancing almost shyly up at Alfred from under dark, femininely long lashes. "When I was younger... before Coahuila, but after I met you... I wanted to look like you. Tall and blond and blue-eyed and... I thought you were like... like an angel or..."

They were both red now, faces warm with embarrassment. Alfred closed his eyes a moment and wished for Pablo to just shut up, and the other coughed, his slender shoulders tense.

"N-never mind. Forget I said anything." The younger half-nation sipped the drink instead of gulping it like he had been, but it was still nearly empty, the caterpillar curled up in the last swallow and waiting to be consumed. "I just don't see why you have to put yourself down like that when you're such... a wonder."

He didn't know what to say to that. The noise just sort of shrunk away into that tense quiet again, the only sound that of the New York City traffic down his street. "I don't know why you bother saying stuff like that."

"Because you obviously need to hear it more often," Pablo said in a near whisper, so Alfred almost didn't catch it. "I mean, you're America. You're wonderful, you're... handsome and you've got those really nice eyes and that smile that just lights you up like a Christmas tree... and those glasses look better on you than they did on me."

Pablo's hand, warm and caramel brown against his cheek, barely touching the silver frames of his glasses with his fingertips. Alfred's heart battered against his ribs and his face grew unbearably hot under the cool wetness of Pablo's palm, damp where he'd been holding the bottle of tequila. Alfred felt dizzy when his breath grew short, closed his eyes when the glasses slipped free from his face.

And Pablo swallowed audibly and traced the thin papery blond lashes, making his eyelids twitch but still far more trusting than he thought he could ever be with Ivan again. He opened his eyes, saw the lamp light catch on Pablo's own black eyelashes and the curly mess of his hair. Soft features, with high cheekbones and thick eyebrows _(though not as thick as England's, no, never)_, exquisitely Spanish green eyes.

He felt the bands brushing each detail of Alfred's own face, from the straight line of his nose to the hook of his jaw. When he came down to Alfred's mouth, he traced the curve of his lips with the pads of his thumbs, causing Alfred to nearly close his eyes again.

Soft lips met his own and his breath caught in his throat, eyes flicking open to see Pablo's closed tight. With his heart thundering, he gently nudged Pablo's mouth open and was met again with the taste of tortilla and jalapeno and now tequila on top of that, the sweetly spicy taste of Pablo's tongue against his own.

Their breaths were heavy as those dark hands mussed his hair, one cupping the back of his neck to pull him in. Alfred's body flushed with heat and he felt a surge of power course through him - He wants me. But in all fairness, Alfred wanted him too. Not just Pablo with his kind words and tortilla kisses; anyone. Any confirmation that he'd earned the power he'd come across by chance. Any warm body and wet mouth to tell him that he was worth something, anything, even a few sloppy and drunken kisses.

And Pablo's palms and fingers told him as much. Made him shudder as they worked down his back, kisses growing too feverish to keep tamed. So instead, that mouth sloped along the side of his lips, across his cheek, down the expanse of his neck and making his breath deepen. Hands slipped up under his T-shirt to rake his back, but Alfred felt that sharp peak of panic and pulled back.

"Wait - !" he gasped, clutching Pablo's wrists to keep them still. "No - not the shirt. I'll... I'll take off the jacket, but not the shirt." He swallowed around the panicked lump in his throat. "Please."

A pause, their breaths mingling with the tequila, and Pablo nodded. "_Si_, okay," he whispered, easing Alfred's jacket from the thick shoulders. It pooled brown leather around his rear and left him feeling almost naked; he nodded to show he was comfortable, pulled Pablo back into another kiss. This one was short so Pablo could feather kisses along his neck again, and Alfred's breath went heavy, vision blurring further when he felt a wet kiss to the little tender spot right behind his ear.

"Mm," Pablo hummed in amusement against his skin, tongue darting out to leave a wet oval on the spot. "Sensitive...?" His hands slid low down Alfred's front - lingered a bit at the clothed stomach to trace over the curve of newly-gained weight, and Alfred whined in protest before his ear was assaulted with another wet kiss and silenced him. "Shh... I've got you, _jefe_." Hands slid lower yet, unfastening the belt to Alfred's suddenly too tight pants.

Pablo's hand wasn't cold anymore as it slipped beneath the denim of his pants to palm him through his boxers. Alfred's skin was on fire in anticipation to cross that line, that fine fine line between employee and overnight lover, or at least it was fine when it came to Mexico as a whole... and Pablo didn't disappoint. Warm Hispanic hands cradled him, stroked him bare now, mouth biting sharply at that tender spot and making him melt into a puddle in the sofa cushions. Pablo's fist was tight and warm as he worked him, and his free hand eased Alfred's jeans down until his lower half was bare to the living room air.

If Alfred was thinking at all clearly, he would've acknowledged how thorough those hands were. Watched two brown digits disappear between Pablo's lips to get them wet, then reappear as the slickness prodding at him for entrance. He felt breathless, gasping for air, gripping hard at Pablo's own clothes as he shifted back to allow him more access... nothing at all like the stronger-than-Soviet nation he tried so hard to be. A belly full of tequila and a few fumbled touches had him gasping for breath and catching fire.

He wasn't sure when Pablo had shed his clothes, fingers now scissoring to stretch him open, but he knew that seeing Pablo naked like this embarrassed him indirectly. Pablo wasn't... unattractive or anything, just from looking at his face, which bore that frighteningly uncanny resemblance to Spain. But nearly everywhere Alfred looked, a scar marred the creamy brown torso. Long scars trailed thin and deep pink like claw-marks down the flat planes of the skinny chest; short, thicker scars like stab wounds marred his collarbone and stomach.

Burns spread like hardened puddles across the flat stomach, along with stranger scars that he couldn't pinpoint. Alfred had seen the purple stretch marks along Pablo's elbows before, in the moments that Pablo would stretch and the sleeves would ride up, or hot summer days when his Mexican friend would simply roll up the long sleeves in frustration with the heat. But close up like this, they seemed more vivid, somehow; intricate, and only then did Pablo's limbs seem a little too long, his body a little too gangly or thin.

And Pablo was unashamed. Alfred felt humiliated with his own minimal scars, the long thick jagged line across his stomach especially - yet here was southern Mexico, littered in gashes and marks, completely okay with who he was. In this moment, Alfred felt infinitely younger than Pablo, and thought he saw the unlived years in the soft green eyes.

"Deep breath," Pablo whispered, and Alfred wasn't sure why until he felt the other push his way inside.

Not as gentle or careful as Ivan had been, and not as soft or loving as he daydreamed Arthur would be. Pablo's movements were quick and deep, pleasurable but with an unaccustomed roughness; and those hands didn't shy away from touching him in places he'd never been touched before in his minimal sexual experience, from still trying to touch under his shirt despite however much Alfred batted his hands away.

Dizzily, he held on through the canting of his hips and hard thrusts, uncomfortable until he felt Pablo strike something just right, sending his nerves singing in pleasure. He heard himself cry out and Pablo held onto the crooks of his knees; the younger shuddered against him and growled lowly as he shifted against that spot again. Alfred saw fireworks behind his eyelids, clutching Pablo closer to kiss him, deep and plunging as the thrusts into him.

Another cry into Pablo's lips and he came to piece like confetti, thoughts scattering into bright lights and noise, legs wrapped firmly around him and Pablo's palms smoothing over his shaking thighs. He tensed, tightened, drove back onto him when he came messily over Pablo's bare and marred stomach, felt the other drive into him with low gasps before he came as well, deep and warm and satisfying.

They breathed together for a long moment. Tortilla, jalapeno, tequila - milkshakes, burgers, Lucky Charms cereal. Pablo's legs trembled as they untangled from his own, his green eyes smoldering when they stared into his own.

They shared another kiss, this one sweetly innocent, the barest brush of lips now that more carnal desires had been satisfied. Alfred hoped for a moment that he would feel as young as they both were, Pablo even younger than himself, by two human years; just two teenagers getting too excited, too drunk, too...

He didn't even know what anymore.

Pablo pulled back from him, pulled out, and his elbows gave way to let the thin body fall boneless into Alfred's thicker one. "_Lo... lo siento_..." he panted against Alfred's lips, but Alfred silenced him with another kiss until he pulled away once more. "A-America-"

"Alfred," he whispered, Pablo trembling against him like it had been too much a trial on the bony body. The dark brown curls were soft under his fingers. "Call me Alfred, Pablo, it's alright."

So Pablo did. "Alfred," he hummed into the warm salty skin. "Alfred, Alfred, _Alfred. Mi Alfredo, mi America, mi amo_-" Paused; Alfred, swallowed, waited. But no.

"_Mi amigo_."

He smiled as the warmth of sleep and alcohol lulled him and pulled him under. No dreams caressed his subconscious, but the afterglow gave him no nightmares either. Pablo's whispered Spanish turned to gibberish in his mind as he finally gave way to the exhaustion.

* * *

Pablo waited until very late at night before he left the house again, clothes smelling of sex and head fuzzy from the drink - the bottle, mostly empty but for the last swallow, was gripped loosely in his left hand. In his right, read by dirty yellow lamp light in the airport parking lot, was a file of very important papers regarding the United States experimentation of the hydrogen bomb in a few islands just off the coast of Alaska.

It would be the largest, most dangerous explosion ever created by the U.S.

And Pablo was sure that within months, the Soviet Union would have something better.

He closed his eyes and imagined Russia's heavy hand petting his hair in appreciation and approval - "You've done a good job, Pablo. You could give your sister lessons." - and his heart swelled at the thought of earning someone's pride, anyone's, let alone someone as powerful and important as the Soviet Union. But it broke again at the thought of America waking up alone and half naked on his sofa.

"_Lo siento, Señor America_," he whispered to the darkness, pressing a tequila kiss to the documents. Then he lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed the worm in the last mouthful of bitter alcohol at the bottom. His love and hatred for Alfred threatened to consume him as he made his way back to Mexico City alone.

* * *

**Historical Notes**:

*The Soviet Union had an actual spy base in Mexico City to spy on the United States without placing spies within America.

*Coahuila was one of the main turning points in the War of Mexican Independence; Mexican rebels fled northward toward the American border after a defeat at Calderon Bridge, with the promise from Americans that the Spanish wouldn't be there. But of course, the Spanish ambushed them as they were welcomed into town.

The scars smothering Pablo's body are scars from his stay with the Inquisition after this ambush.

*The hydrogen bomb was tested in 1971; the Atomic Energy Commission detonated the largest U.S. underground hydrogen device, during testing in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.


End file.
